'I thought I did everything right'

A Wausau mother shares story of losing daughter to heroin

Jan. 26, 2014

Jamie Gruna, pictured in this undated photo, was a 2006 Wausau East High School graduate whose life spiraled into heroin addiction. Jamie died August 4 due to a massive infection caused by using dirty needles. / Contributed photo

Where to go for help

Wausau Health Services, 209 W. Washington St., Wausau; 715-845-3637 Ministry Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Marshfield; 715-387-9700, or 800-468-9700 North Central Health Care, 1100 Lake View Drive; Wausau; 715-848-4600 For help choosing a counselor, visit the provider information page at The United Way of Marathon County at http://bit.ly/1aPgD81. To find treatment providers in your area, visit the U.S. Department of Health online behavioral health treatment locator at http://findtreatment.samhsa.gov/ or call 800-662-HELP (4357). Find out more about what you can do to help fight drug abuse in Marathon County at www.pushbackdrugs.org.

Jamie Gruna began her downward spiral before March 2011, when she admitted using dirty needles to inject heroin. / Contributed photo

More

ADVERTISEMENT

Editor’s note: This story is one in a series published by Daily Herald Media tracking the growing use of heroin in central Wisconsin and the toll the drug has taken on our community. –

WAUSAU – Tammy Schultz remembers with crystal clarity the March 2011 day she learned her 22-year-old daughter, Jamie Gruna, was addicted to heroin; Schultz thought that day would be the worst of her life.

“The track marks were everywhere; on her hands, her arms, her feet,” said Schultz, 45, a hairdresser who lives in Wausau. “I thought, ‘my God, this is my daughter?’ I didn’t want to see it. Then, I had to face the truth — my daughter was addicted to heroin.”

But Schultz was wrong about one thing; the worst day of her life was yet to come.

That terrible day arrived more than two years later, on Aug. 4, when Gruna, surrounded by her closest friends and family, died — two months after doctors diagnosed her with a massive infection contracted through Jamie’s repeated use of contaminated needles to shoot heroin into her veins. Gruna’s death is not included in the record 16 drug-related deaths reported in Marathon County in 2013 because she did not die of an overdose; regardless, her death is one more life lost to an addiction so powerful that nothing — not even the fear of death — could make her stop shooting up.

“You shouldn’t have to watch your children die,” Schultz said. “For months, that’s what I did. I went to that hospital and watched my daughter die. And there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that I could do.”

On Sept. 1, less than one month after Gruna died, heroin once again cast its shadow over the family when Jamie’s father, 44-year-old Donovan Gruna, whom Schultz divorced when Jamie was a toddler, also died. Autopsy results showed Donovan Gruna died of a heroin overdose, according to the Marathon County Medical Examiner’s Office.

“That’s when the second-guessing really starts,” Schultz said. “I ask myself every day what I could have done differently to save Jamie, and to save her dad. Maybe there was something I could have done; I just don’t know. And I think about it all the time.”

(Page 2 of 6)

In a lengthy interview with Daily Herald Media, Schultz detailed the story of how heroin addiction destroyed the life of her child, her former husband and her family. Schultz is riddled with questions, the most haunting of which is, how could a bright, middle-class, Midwestern kid end up with needles in her arms and heroin coursing through her veins?

A near-brush with death

Jamie Gruna and her twin sister, Jennifer Gruna, who declined to comment for this story, were both happy, well-adjusted children, Schultz said. The sisters grew up in a loving home with an attentive, doting mother, and a caring stepfather who works for a local garbage-collection company.

Jamie was a “typical girl,” Schultz said; she loved to shop and spend time with her family. She dreamed of one day owning a motorcycle and loved to ride whenever she had the chance. Schultz, who rarely drinks and does not use drugs herself, said drinking and drug use were strictly forbidden in the family’s home.

Both girls graduated in 2006 from Wausau East High School; the twins moved out of the house shortly after graduation and both worked as housekeepers at the same local hotels. The sisters were extremely close, but at some point, they began to follow separate paths, Schultz said.

“Jennifer kind of went the other way,” Schultz said. “I’m sure she went out and had a lot of fun, like girls do, but she never got into drugs like Jamie did.”

Even as a teen, Jamie’s life was a study in contrasts. When she was 17, she faced obstruction charges and served a year on probation after she helped cover up a staged robbery attempt May 16, 2005, at an Arby’s restaurant on Grand Avenue masterminded by several of her friends. The same year, she was lauded for helping teens with special needs and disabilities get ready for a semi-formal dance at Wausau East.

Schultz said she doesn’t know exactly when Jamie started using, but suspects she began dabbling in drugs and alcohol shortly after she graduated from high school. By the time Jamie was 21, Schultz knew her daughter was partying and taking drugs, but at first didn’t know — and didn’t want to know — just how far her daughter had fallen. For several years, Schultz said, she looked the other way and hid from the truth; she likely never will know when Jamie first slipped a needle into a vein and shot up.

(Page 3 of 6)

But she does know that everything changed in 2011 when Jamie came down with what Schultz initially thought was the flu.

“I finally got her to go to the emergency room,” Schultz said. “One of the doctors finally saw the track marks and said, ‘So, how long have you been using?’ That’s when she finally admitted she was using heroin. She admitted she had been using dirty needles, and that’s how she got sick, both times.”

Jamie didn’t have the flu. Doctors quickly diagnosed her with a particularly virulent staph infection that attacked her heart; surgeons performed emergency open-heart surgery and told Schultz to prepare for the worst. No one expected Jamie to live through the weekend.

“We thought she was going to die that night,” Schultz said. “I don’t think anyone thought she was going to pull through. But the next morning when she woke up in the ICU, it was like a miracle. I was hopeful. I thought she was going to make it, I really did.”

After her open-heart surgery, Jamie not only survived, she thrived; she spent nearly two months in the hospital, where doctors monitored her withdrawal symptoms and nurtured her back to good health. When she emerged in late April 2011, Jamie was determined to keep drugs out of her life, Schultz said.

“She told me, ‘Mom, I don’t want to live like that anymore; I don’t want to worry about where I’m going to find the money for drugs. I don’t want to have dealers coming to my house. I want to be happy again,’” Schultz said. “I thought this was it, that she’d be scared enough of what could happen to her that she wouldn’t use again.”

A downward spiral

One week after her release from the hospital, heroin’s relentless siren song lured Jamie back to using; she tried rehab three times, but did not succeed, said Schultz, who is frustrated at the lack of treatment options available for heroin addiction in central Wisconsin. Schultz’s boyfriend, Daniel Brandt, who has been sober for nearly 10 years after he battled his own addiction to cocaine and alcohol, said heroin is unique because opiate addiction is tremendously difficult to fight.

(Page 4 of 6)

“The lure of heroin is so powerful, so great, even knowing you can die from using it isn’t enough to make you stop,” Brandt said. “That’s what happened to Jamie; she came so close to dying the first time. Why would you want to go back to using when you almost died from using it before? But that’s how strong this addiction is, and there is just so little help for it.”

Schultz said the next two years were a nightmare for the family as they watched Jamie drift further down the road to ruin. Jamie moved in with Schultz for a time, then moved out. She frequently showed up in the middle of the night at Schultz’s home, asking for $10 or $20 for her next fix.

“Did I give it to her?” Schultz said. “Yes, usually, I did. I gave it to her. I knew she was using the money for drugs, but if I didn’t give her the money, I had to wonder what she’d resort to to get the drugs. Would she rob someone, or worse? Would she die, going through withdrawal? As a parent, you don’t know what to do. I still don’t know what the right thing is to do, but that’s what I did.”

One night, Schultz said, a pair of drug dealers showed up at her house, demanding money. The men said Jamie owed them a debt for drugs she bought “on credit,” and they wanted their money — now. Terrified for her daughter’s safety and her own, Schultz paid the men hundreds of dollars to satisfy the debt.

“I handed over my whole paycheck, immediately,” Schultz said. “I didn’t think twice about it. I was scared they were going to hurt my daughter. I thought they might kill her. So I gave them the money and I worried later about how to pay the rent.”

Miraculously, Schultz said, Jamie was able to hold down a job even while using; she lived with her boyfriend, a man who Schultz said shared Jamie’s drug habit. Attempts by Daily Herald Media to contact Jamie’s boyfriend were not successful.

Schultz said she watched helplessly as her daughter’s drug use continued and then escalated. Jamie lost weight, looked pale and stopped caring about her appearance. Things came to a head in May, when Jamie once again ended up at the Aspirus Wausau Hospital emergency room with a staph infection; this time, the infection spread to her brain. Doctors quickly admitted Jamie, who would never again set foot outside the hospital.

(Page 5 of 6)

Jamie, whose body was ravaged by years of hardcore drug use, declined quickly. In early June, Jamie suffered a massive stroke. Repeated seizures wracked her tiny body; her 5-foot, 8-inch frame was down to just 79 pounds when she was admitted to the hospital. In August, she slipped into a coma and died. For Schultz, who left her job to keep a daily vigil at her daughter’s bedside, the grief was indescribable.

“The worst thing you can ever experience is losing a child,” Schultz said. “As a parent, you’re supposed to protect your child. I couldn’t do that.”

The complexities of treatment

Treatment for any addiction is difficult because addiction itself is complicated, said Michael Dix, a Wausau therapist who has spent decades counseling alcoholics and drug users. Heroin has a unique chemical effect on the brain and has a profound effect on problem-solving, perception, memory, judgment, craving and the experience of pleasure, Dix said. The neurological component, combined with a culture rife with mixed messages regarding what is acceptable, what is sexy, what is sinful and what is edgy, adds to heroin’s lure, he said.

“Can you see why ‘Just say no’ doesn’t cut it?” Dix said.

The whys of drug addiction remain largely a mystery, Dix said; people start using for a variety of reasons ranging from thrill-seeking to peer pressure or as a way to alleviate psychological, emotional or physical pain.

For Schultz, the question of why — and what ultimately led to her daughter’s heroin use — haunts her daily, though she realizes she will never truly find answers.

“When your daughter dies from heroin addiction and her father dies of an overdose a few weeks later, you have to wonder if there is some genetic connection,” Schultz said. “But then, Jennifer doesn’t have the same issue.”

Dix said some studies strongly suggest a significantly higher incidence of addiction in children whose parents or grandparents also struggle with drug or alcohol abuse, though each individual case is different. But the genetics component is just one factor, Dix said. Other contributors include family relationship dynamics, individual personality, emotional or physical distress and probably others not yet discovered.

(Page 6 of 6)

“Enough of the required ingredients need to come together at the right time under the right circumstances — the so-called perfect storm,” Dix said.

Dix said Schultz’s agony over what she could have done to save her child is a normal reaction for someone who has lost a child to addiction, but there is probably nothing Schultz could have done to save Jamie or Jamie’s father.

“There is nothing any parent can do to guarantee that their child will not use or use to the point of addiction unless they are ready to violate their children’s human and civil rights,” Dix said. “Probably the most important single step a parent can take is to enlist help from a credentialed addictions professional to obtain education, guidance and support first for themselves.”

Schultz, who has returned to work and is coping with the help of family and friends, said she hopes that her story will help other parents recognize the signs of addiction and realize that heroin isn’t just a drug that “someone else’s child might use.”

“I want people to know that my daughter was a beautiful, normal, wonderful girl,” Schultz said. “When she talked, it was like she was singing. She made everyone happy. I hope people know that this problem doesn’t just happen to kids in bad homes. She had everything she wanted. I thought I did everything right.”